American Go E-Journal » Youth

This September, the American Collegiate Go Association (ACGA) will be hosting a Chinese professional tournament on US soil for the first time ever, at Harvard University. While four of the strongest Chinese professionals play the semifinals of the Chang Qi Cup, the ACGA will also be holding a 4-round AGA-rated tournament for amateurs. Thanks to the Ing Foundation’s generous sponsorship, there is more than $10,000 available in cash prizes across the divisions, including a 16-player open section, and registrants will receive free catered lunches. Live commentary, pro simuls, and game reviews are also planned, and the entire event is absolutely free. Register early here for a free goodie bag, and a chance to participate in a simul against Chang Hao 9P. -Julian Erville. Photo: Chang Hao winning the Chunlan Cup.

The Nihon Ki-In is inviting participants of their summer go camp to the first game of the 40th Meijin title match, which will be held in Tokyo on September 3rd. The defending title holder is Iyama Yuta. The participants will visit the venue, a five-star luxury hotel, and will be able to enter the room and watch the first couple of moves, up close by the players.

Special prizes will be given to the top three players of the league tournament at the go camp, in both dan and kyu brackets, including the Complete Works of Honinbo Shusai, which is out print and would be worth at least 500 USD. The game collection includes Honinbo Shuei (Meijin), Karigane Junichi and Go Seigen. A special fan will be also given to the top three players of each league tournament including Go Seigen’s 100 year birthday and the Nihon Ki-in’s 90th Anniversary fan signed by Honorary professionals (Cho Chikun, Kobayashi Koichi, Otake Hideo, Rin Kaiho and Ishida Shuho). All participants will be presented with a folding fan including autographs of Iyama Yuta, Cho U, Otake Hideo, Rin Kaiho, Cho Chikun, Kobayashi Koichi, Ishida Shuho, Takemiya Masaki, Yoda Norimoto, Go Seigen, Fujisawa Shuko, and Sakata Eio. For registration, please visit the official website of the Nihon Ki-In Summer Go Camp 2015. Address all inquiries to overseasdept@nihonkiin.or.jp

Albert Yen 7d (at left) and Ary Cheng 1d (at right) lead the Redmond Cup’s Senior and Junior standings after completing the preliminary rounds, held online, over the last few months. The Senior division, with a field of nineteen players, was especially hard-fought: the three top-seeded players, Yen, Jeremy Chiu 6d, and four-time Junior champion Aaron Ye 6d, were all still undefeated after the third round. By the end, it was still close, with four players holding 4-2 records or better. Although the Senior division was competitive, the fifteen-year-old Yen was dominant, winning all six rounds. “Some luck was needed to pull me through undefeated,” Yen told the Journal, “Yunxuan Li is a respectable opponent in the finals, and I must be very careful as his fighting is quite strong.”

Yunxuan Li 6d, age 17, claimed second place in the Senior division by going 5-1. His one defeat was in the third round against Yen, but he will have a chance for revenge when the two front-runners square off in a best of three in the finals. While this will be Yen’s first time competing in the finals, Li is excited to return after finishing runner-up in the Junior division in 2009: “It’s been six years since my last Redmond. It is such a pleasure to be in it again.”

In the Junior Division players fought neck and neck. With a field of seven, byes became an issue, so the event was run as a a round robin – giving each kid a chance to play all of the others. Nine-year-old Ary Cheng 1d, was the clear-cut winner, losing only once to the top seed. Cheng told the Journal he is thrilled to have made it into first place as a shodan: “I will work hard to improve my skill and play the best game I can in the final.” The battle for second place and a trip to the finals, on the other hand, was extremely close. Two players – the top seed, Tingwen Zhang 5d, and Raymond Feng 1d – finished 4-2. The mathematical tie-breaking systems were no help: Zhang and Feng both had the same SOS and SODOS scores. The tournament directors used their face-to-face matchup to decide second place. Because he had pulled off an upset in the first round against the higher ranked Zhang, Feng earned his place as the runner-up.

The final rounds will be broadcast live on KGS, from the US Go Congress, at 3 pm on August 2nd, 3rd, and 6th. Yen, Li, Cheng, and Feng have all won a free trip to Congress, where they will play best-of-three matches for the titles of their respective divisions. -EJ Special Report by Julian Erville

The Korean Baduk Association is inviting any interested youth to two different events. Airfare is not covered, but accommodations, meals, and all local transport is. The World Youth Baduk Festival will be held in Inje, Gangwon, from August 1-4. Students from Elementary school up through College are all invited. The 2nd Kuksu Mountain Cup will be held August 7-12 in Jeolla South Province, the age limit is under 15, but slightly older is also acceptable. All levels of players are welcome. Contact youth@usgo.org if you are interested in attending any of these events.

“I went to New York for a vacation, and when I went to the American Museum of Natural History, at the Japanese Hall, I saw a board of go and stones. I was surprised of the size, because I had never seen a Goban for real,” writes Mateo Nava, of Mexico City.

Fifth-grader Ethan Lin took first place in the 8th annual Happy Cup Tournament, winning all four of his games, on June 7. “The tournament was hosted by the Santa Clara Youth Go Club at Sunflower Chinese School, where thirty-seven young players competed for trophies and cool prizes,” reports organizer Wenguang Wang, “the players and their parents also got to enjoy an ice cream party after the tournament. I decided to organize this tournament so that more and more children could play go, I wanted to make the tournament as fun as possible so the players would enjoy playing go more.” -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo by Xiao Xie: First place winner Ethan Lin is at far right in the blue shirt.

Xinming Simon Guo 1d, of Chicago, Illinois, has been named the AGF Teacher of the Year, winning a free trip to the 2015 U.S. Go Congress in St. Paul, Minnesota. Guo has been active in youth go promotion for years, first partnering with the Confucius Institute in Chicago in the fall of 2012 to offer go instruction to Chinese language classrooms. “This program has been very successful,” Guo told the Journal. “Some schools requested more instructional hours, and some schools added go to their after-school program. More teachers joined this program in 2014 and 2015. One school started a tournament after my introduction courses. Meanwhile, I have started to train teachers to meet the increasing demand for go in Chicago’s schools.”

In 2012, Guo founded the GoAndMath Academy, whose mission is “to use go to help develop students’ math ability, especially number sense.” In 2013 and 2014, Guo organized several workshops, one was to aid Chinese teachers in the Chicago area in bringing go to the classroom as a part of Chinese culture. The other two workshops were directed towards math teachers at ICTM (Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics) in October of 2013 and MMC (Metropolitan Mathematics Club of Chicago) in February of 2014. “During these workshops, I gave a presentation on the link between go and Common Core State Standards,” Guo told the E-Journal. “I taught teachers how to play go and how the game can be integrated into math classrooms. Specifically, the teachers learned ways to incorporate go to help students develop number sense and incorporate three domains in Common Core standards — Counting and Cardinality, Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Number and Operations in Base Ten.” Guo’s approach to integrating go into American school curricula affected about 3,500 students and 50 teachers in 2013, and subsequently 6,500 students in 2014.

“As a licensed math teacher and a go instructor, I will continue to research how go helps develop students’ number sense and other math abilities. Currently, I am designing a go and math curriculum that can be easily used in school settings, especially in math classrooms.” Guo is currently affiliated with over forty schools in the Chicago area, three universities, and three museums and libraries. Guo will give a talk at the US Go Congress on Monday, Aug. 3. “My plan is to let go players know that go can help math and it is correlated with the new Common Core Math Standards. This is a powerful research result to extend go to school programs, and this is what I have done for years. Usually I present this go and math correlation to math teachers and educators in conference. I will adjust it for go players. I am a go player for math teachers and math teacher for go players,” adds Guo. -EJ special report, by Amy Su. Photo: Guo (standing) teaching kids, from GoandMath Academy’s Facebook page.

“The AGA Go Camp would like to extend a hearty thanks to Kiseido, Slate & Shell, and Yellow Mountain Imports for their generous donations to the 2015 camp,” says camp director Amanda Miller, “in addition to go lessons and outdoor activities, we also run small tournaments and other go-related activities every night. These activities include 13×13, pair go, and team tournaments, and we plan to use these items as prizes in those events. We’ve received some especially generous donations this year, and we have more than enough to go around, so every camper should receive at least one prize!” Donations include books, travel go sets, and other go-related merchandise.

For anyone between the ages of 8 and 18 who wants to join in the fun, there’s still time to register. This year’s camp will take place from July 18th to July 25th at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio. Directors Amanda Miller and Nano Rivera are excited to have Myungwan Kim 9P as this summer’s professional teacher, and they invite those interested in the camp to apply for need-based scholarships, which are still available. Anyone who participated in the NAKC or the Redmond Cup is eligible for a $400 scholarship. “The camp currently has 15 registered campers from the ages of 8 to 18 and with strengths ranging from 30-kyu to 1-kyu. Camp should be a lot of fun, regardless of age or rank,” adds Miller. For more information, visit the camp website, or email Amanda Miller at agagocampeast@gmail.com. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo by Amanda Miller: Campers showing off their prizes at last year’s camp.

More go players and teachers are starting to stream their games on Twitch, the world’s leading video platform and community for gamers. More than 45 million gamers gather every month on Twitch to broadcast, watch and chat about gaming. Several go players are getting in on the action, including Shawn Ray 4d, who reviews games and holds lectures; Battousai 5d, who teaches and has lectures using different go servers; and Xiaocheng-Stephen Hu 3d, who goes over many go concepts.

Shawn Ray will have Yoonyoung Kim 4p, a pro from South Korea, in his next lecture this Saturday at 8 pm central time, on June 20th. “This should be a fun event as well as my first professional guest on stream. If it goes well I also plan to do more events like these,” Ray notes. The event can be watched on Ray’s Twitch channel here. He also has a list of teachers that are streaming reviews and teaching games, which can be found here.

Xiaocheng-Stephen Hu, also known as xhu98, is the host of an ongoing tournament between teachers found on OGS and KGS. The schedule and participants can be found here. “I am really enjoying the tournament,” says Triton Perrin, “of course I am not strong enough to get far, but it has inspired me to work just a little bit harder to do my best against other teachers I look up to. To me, it seems like this tournament is helping the go community come together and get more people involved.” Hu has a lecture every Friday for all ranks, and occasionally has players join him in his lectures. Times can be found on the spreadsheet link from Shawn Ray above.

Josh Allen, also known as Battousai, has been doing lectures for years, and now puts his videos on his website, as well as Twitch and YouTube. Click here to visit his site. Allen has lectures every Wednesday afternoon from 3pm to 9pm EST. “I love games and problems, but I don’t even play go,’ says username Wreqt, “I stick around because I like you. Your instruction and teaching is fantastic, and it is a blast to hear your commentary on this game. Thanks for such a great channel!”
- Special report by Austin Freeman. Image: Battousi’s cartoon version takes on bots, from www.dwyrin.tv.

Symmetry Plus, a magazine for young mathematicians in the UK, published an article about Hikaru no Go and math in its latest issue. Calin Galeriu, a professor at Becker College, writes that go is a “board game with an incredible amount of mathematical content.” Young people reading Hikaru learn about area, the coordinate plane, deductive and inductive reasoning, and more. The problem solving techniques Hikaru and his friends use for go problems are similar to those used when solving mathematical problems.